IKN

1) At the CRU conference in Chile, Reuters had to search hard to find a bullish shiller or two. The report ends up with Ivanhoe’s Friedland (a man with a “history of promotion”, let’s say diplomatically) and some non-entity from Petaquilla which is simply the worst mining company in Latin America (and that, dudettes and dudes, really takes some doing). If these are the only people Reuters could come up with for saying “buy copper” it doesn’t bode well for spot Cu.

2) John Kaiser (who gets general approval Chez Otto…I don’t subscribe but he’s not a bad newsletter writer and importantly has a top reputation for honesty and integrity) just said the following (mailed over by reader DL 30 minutes ago…I don’t know exactly when Kaiser published it).

There is some suspicion that hedge funds have re-entered the “hard assets” arena, and quite a few market observers have issued sell recommendations for the copper sector on the premise that copper prices will soon develop a downtrend. Nickel prices have remained near the bottom of their recent range, and while zinc and lead have both crept higher, the gain is nowhere near as dramatic as in the case of copper.

I do think that’s fair comment even as I try my hardest to avoid the “blame the hedgies” approach.

3) SinkingAlpha starts publishing nobodies and their “buy copper” calls. This one really is a great contrary indicator, stopped clocks notwithstanding.

DYODD, and accuse me of searching for reasons to justify my own position as a short-term copper bear if you like. I am LT bullish on the stuff, by the way, but do believe it needs to retest lows in the next couple of months before it really moves up properly.